Violin
by Murmured Lullabye
Summary: Sherlock has a habit of expressing the things he cannot – will not – say with his compositions. He continues because no one ever listens. Ficlet. Character Study. One-sided Johnlock.


Summary: Sherlock has a habit of expressing the things he cannot – will not – say with his compositions. He continues because no one ever listens.

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_Violin_

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_Nothing compares to you_

_Nothing compares to you_

_I can't let you go, can't let you go_

_I can't let go_

_I'll never be the same,_

_Not after loving you_

_Red - _Never Be the Same

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When Sherlock Holmes first sees John Watson, he knows many things. Most of which he ends up telling the man that night.

The part he doesn't? Well. It is more intuition than anything else, but all the same, Sherlock knows that this man is going to be fascinating. John has a certain something about him that Sherlock has never noticed from anyone else; the fact that he can't pinpoint what it is precisely just makes it that much more exciting.

John finds his deductions fantastic and amazing instead of disturbing. John laughs with him and his morbid humor at crime scenes. John rolls his eyes at Sherlock's laziness but does what he asks anyway. John is just _there_, stable and dependable and utterly, completely unique and unpredictable.

It takes Sherlock three weeks to realize that the miniscule twist his stomach made when John said he wasn't interested in Sherlock like _that _at Angelo's was disappointment.

And that is – senseless. Pointless and totally illogical. He would've turned John down anyway, and the idea of what people define as a…romantic partnership applied to Sherlock is both appalling and more than a little bit preposterous. Love and flowers and companionship are not for men like Sherlock Holmes (not there are any other men like him, but the idea still applies). Sherlock has his body parts, serial killers, and ice-cold exterior instead. So he pushes the incident aside as a natural physical attraction to the first handsome man who's shown any genuine interest in him for. Well, forever, really.

But then, Moriarty. And the pool. (John, wrapped in a vest of explosives, eyes scared and desperate, offering himself to take down Moriarty, as if Sherlock could _ever _make that decision)

Moriarty sees it before he does; "I'll burn you. I'll burn the _heart_ out of you." Because that is what John is. Sherlock's missing heart, bundled up into human form as this utterly amazing army doctor, completely at the mercy of a madman.

They get out by a stroke of pure, blessed luck. Sherlock is careful not to act any differently. It is bad enough that someone like Moriarty knows. No one else needs to realize just what John is to Sherlock (essential, the missing pieces of him filled with careful hands and a strong conviction). Sherlock has no wish to listen to John's inevitable reaction. The gentle letdown – _I'm sorry Sherlock, but you're just a friend _– the inexorable knowledge that John has _options _and _choices _that Sherlock doesn't have, will never have. For Sherlock, there is only the work, and John. Always John.

"Do you ever wonder if there's something wrong with us?"

"Caring is not an advantage."

He and Mycroft are standing outside of the morgue at Bart's, Irene Adler's body cold and dead on an uncaring slab of metal. Sherlock had some grudging respect for the woman, replaced now with a faint disappointment at a potential challenge being lost. Nothing more. But – John, and his bloody girlfriend, whose name Sherlock can recall perfectly but doesn't want to, wishes he could delete it but knows he can't. He'll never be able to delete anything about John Watson.

Sentiment is a detriment, a distraction. Sherlock knows this, and knows it well, but even that cannot stop the hollow ache that lingers like an old companion behind his ribcage.

Sherlock knows that both John and Mycroft think his recent penchant for more melancholy compositions is due to The Woman. The thought is preposterous. Sherlock doesn't bother to enlighten them, doesn't tell them that he is trying to explain himself to a world that doesn't listen (and won't care even if it does) with quiet notes and a lost tone. Doesn't tell them that the music is for the shattered and missing pieces of what's left of Sherlock's soul, currently within sight but ultimately unreachable. Doesn't tell them that it is for John, not Irene.

When they take the Baskerville case, Sherlock realizes another thing; even if John returns this unquantifiable feeling Sherlock has for the doctor, he could never make John happy. He doesn't prioritize things like other people (apparently, using friends as test subjects is seen as immoral rather than a sign of trust in the normal mind). The Work will always come first. He'll inevitably say something to John ("I don't have _friends._") and totally fail to make it up to him ("I don't have friends. I've just got one.")

John deserves some nice girl, someone normal, stable, easy. Something to center him; the calm in the eye of the storm. That is something Sherlock will never be capable of giving; he is practically danger, uncertainty, and difficulty personified.

When Sherlock realizes what Moriarty's endgame is, the decision is almost surprisingly easy to make. Fake his death, tear himself from his attachments (and, dare he say, _home_), dismantle Moriarty's web piece by painstaking piece.

Molly is the only one who actually knows what happens after his fall from the rooftop at Bart's. She does the post-mortem and fakes it excellently. Sherlock runs, erasing ever possible trace and fingerprint so even Mycroft will be unable to follow him or even realize he's alive. This is something he has to do alone. Sometimes Sherlock wonders if it's some sort of perverse sense of atonement that is driving him to do this.

He knows it's not, though. Everything is for John, to keep him safe. He might have done the same for Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade, but with John it's a definite thing. Sherlock requests one last thing from Molly: _make sure he's happy, please, _and hopefully that will be enough. It has to be.

Sherlock stays in London for just over six months after the fall. He watches John, makes sure he's okay. The first couple of months are crushing, both for John and himself. Some days Sherlock just wants to reach out to John, tell him it's all okay and Sherlock is doing what he must to keep him safe. He doesn't, obviously, but that doesn't change the fact that he wishes he could. It gets easier as the months crawl forward. John branches out again, sometimes helps the Yard with cases, mostly to assist Lestrade in proving that Sherlock was never a fraud. He writes on his blog again, something about hashtags and the _I Believe in Sherlock Holmes _movement spreading through England (Sherlock is touched, warmed somewhere in the back of his cold heart, even if he will never admit it). John starts dating again, starts laughing, and that's when Sherlock knows it's time for him to move on. There are pieces of Moriarty's network outside of London that must be taken care of.

Sherlock sneaks into 221B Baker Street that night and retrieves his violin and compositions from their positions under a blanket by the window. John isn't living here at the moment, but he will soon.

Later, Sherlock sits on a rooftop under a hatefully clear, starry sky and plays the first of many goodbyes to John.

He's not entirely sure if he can truly say goodbye to something that was never his in the first place.

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Part of a series of character drabbles on Sherlock BBC. I'm still trying to get a feel for these characters, so any and all feedback is appreciated :)

Not Brit-picked, since I am American and have yet to find a British English-writing beta.


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